This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Digital Top Stories
iTunes 11 officially delayed
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 31 October 2012
The all-new iTunes will not go live this month after all, which is just as well, because time was really running out on that pledge, and presumably Team Cupertino are planning to knock off early today from some Halloween festivities.
As previously reported, when Apple previewed its super-enhanced iTunes software and store at a press briefing last month, the company said the revamped service would go live in October. Many expected it to happen at a more recent press event, but last week, in an investor briefing, execs from the IT giant were somewhat vague about a launch date for the updated software.
And yesterday a spokesman confirmed iTunes 11 would not be online by midnight today, saying it was taking longer than expected to get the new software just right. Apple’s Tom Neumayr: “The new iTunes is taking longer than expected and we wanted to take a little extra time to get it right. We look forward to releasing this new version of iTunes with its dramatically simpler and cleaner interface and seamless integration with iCloud before the end of November”.
Some have already speculated whether the delay is linked to the sudden axing this week of Apple exec Scott Forstall, who ran software development for the iPad and iPhone. Gossipers say Forstall’s exit is mainly linked to executive tensions at the top of the Apple company, that have worsened since the departure of the firm’s late founder and CEO Steve Jobs, who was able to better manage clashing executive egos.
Forstall’s departure may have been hastened by the Apple Maps debacle, with some insiders at the firm reckoning Forstall rather than current CEO Tim Cook should have fronted the public apology for the bungled mapping app on the iOS6 operating system. Forstall instead insisted that criticism of the new app was exaggerated (arguably a more Apple-like response).
That said, Forstall had no responsibility for the new iTunes, so his departure is probably not relevant there – except that, given the Maps embarrassment, Apple is presumably extra-sensitive about getting things right when it comes to new software launches.
Others have wondered whether the much mooted Apple streaming service will, in fact, be part of the new look iTunes, and that delays are linked to agreeing licensing terms with the majors on that element. Though label insiders in the US say that talks regarding iStream are not far enough advanced to allow a November launch of that service, as has now been promised for iTunes 11.
